Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Allen, Ethan, 1737-

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military officer; born in Litchfield, Conn., Jan. 10, 1737. In 1762 he was one of the proprietors of the ironworks at Salisbury, Conn. In 1766) he went to the then almost unsettled domain between the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain, where he was a bold leader of the settlers on the New Hampshire grants in their controversy with the authorities of New York. (See New Hampshire.) During this period several pamphlets were written by Allen, in his peculiar style, which forcibly illustrated the injustice of the action of the New York authorities. The latter declared Allen an outlaw. and offered a reward of £ 150 for his arrest. He defied his enemies, and persisted in his course. Early in May, 1775, he led a few men and took the fortress of Ticonderoga. His followers were called “Green Mountain boys.” His success as a partisan caused him to be sent twice into Canada, during the latter half of 1775, to win the people over to the republican cause. In the last of these expeditions he attempted to capture Montreal.

With less than 100 recruits, mostly Canadians, Colonel Allen crossed the St. Lawrence, Sept. 25, 1775. This was (lone at the suggestion of Col. John Brown, who was also recruiting in the vicinity, and who agreed to cross the river at the same time a little above the city, the attack to be made simultaneously by both parties. For causes never satisfactorily explained, Brown did not cross, and disaster [104] ensued. Gen. Robert Prescott was in command in the city. He sallied out with a considerable force of regulars, Canadians and Indians, and after a short skirmish made Allen and his followers prisoners. When Prescott learned that

Ethan Allen.

Allen was the man who captured Ticonderoga, he treated him very harshly. He was bound hand and foot with irons, and these shackles were fastened to a bar of iron 8 feet in length. In this plight he was thrust into the hold of a vessel to be sent to England, and in that condition he was kept five weeks: but when she sailed from Quebec the humane captain struck off his irons. He was confined seven weeks in Pendennis Castle in England, when he was sent to Halifax, and thence to New York, where he was exchanged in the spring of 1778, and returned home, where he was received with joy and honors. He was invested with the chief command of the State militia. Congress immediately gave him the commission of lieutenant-colonel in the Continental army. When, in the course of the war. Vermont assumed and maintained an independent position, a fruitless attempt was made by Beverly Robinson to bribe. Allen to lend his support to a union of that province with Canada. He was supposed to be disaffected towards the revolted colonies, and he fostered that impression in order to secure the neutrality of the British towards his mountain State until the close of the war. As a member of the legislature of Vermont, and as a delegate in Congress, he secured the great object of his efforts — namely, the ultimate recognition of Vermont as an independent State. He removed to Burlington before the close of the war, and died there Feb. 13, 1780. In 1894 the United States government established a new military post 5 miles from Burlington and named it after him. See Ethan Allen. Fort.

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lawyer; born in Monmouth county, N. J., May 12, 1832; was graduated at Brown University in 1860. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised a brigade of troops, but did not enter the service. In 1861-69 he was deputy United States attorney for the Southern District of New York; in 1870-90 practised law in New York City; and in the Presidential campaign of 1872 was chairman of the National Liberal Republican Committee. Subsequently he was president of the Cuban League of the United States. He is the author of Washington, or the Revolution, a history of the American Revolution in dramatic form.